“I pretty much single-handedly lost that one,” Kennedy said, owning this 5-4 loss to the Atlanta Braves in a somber Mariners clubhouse afterward.

“That wasn’t good.”

No, it wasn’t. But there was very little good here on a night when the Mariners lost their starting catcher to injury (Miguel Olivo, cramps), required their back-up to play hurt for six innings (Chris Gimenez, strained oblique), and stranded seven runners in scoring position.

So Kennedy’s first statement probably wasn’t entirely accurate, though after he botched a double-steal attempt in the seventh inning, some will be more than happy to pin the blame for this loss on him.

The Mariners trailed, 5-3, Ichiro on second base and Kennedy on first after both had singled in the bottom of the seventh. There was one out. Left-hander George Sherrill was pitching for the Braves. Justin Smoak, batting right-handed, was at the plate.

And when Ichiro – to nobody’s surprise – bolted for third, Kennedy read it perfectly, expecting the speedster to attempt a steal ahead of him. So Kennedy took off for second. But Ichiro had such a massive jump, Braves catcher Brian McCann opted to throw behind him to second base in an attempt to get Kennedy.

It worked. He was out. And that’s all there is to it, Kennedy said. The call didn’t come from the bench. It was just a matter of the 35-year-old veteran not getting to the base in time.

“I was ready for Ich to go the whole time,” Kennedy lamented. “I wasn’t late. He just threw me out. It wasn’t him catching me off guard or anything. I just got thrown out.”

“That’s going to happen from time to time,” manager Eric Wedge said. “I think (that’s) the first time that’s happened this year, but we all have faith in these guys as base runners and being aggressive and understanding the game, and Adam understands as well as anybody.”

Smoak wound up walking. Dustin Ackley followed with a single that scored Ichiro, and would have scored Kennedy with the tying run had he not been gunned at second base.

What followed was perhaps even stranger than the base-running goof. Gimenez stepped to the plate, suffering, unbeknownst to onlookers, from a strained oblique muscle. He sustained that injury in the fifth inning, just one frame after he was forced into duty when Olivo couldn’t make it through the fourth inning due to leg cramps.

Got all that?

Anyway, Gimenez was hurting so badly by that point in the seventh that he was quite literally incapable of swinging the bat, so he tried to bunt. Twice. With two outs. And, well, when that didn’t work, Gimenez just hoped against hope that Scott Proctor, on in relief of Sherrill, would walk him.

He almost did. But a 3-2 fastball dissected the plate perfectly, and Gimenez could only grit his teeth and walk back to the dugout.

“We had to keep him back there, because we needed a catcher,” Wedge said. “In that situation there, where we had him trying to bunt for a hit, it was either two shots to bunt for a hit, otherwise, he just had to take it like a man and hope that he walked him.”

It shouldn’t have come to that, though, regardless of the five runs and five walks that Michael Pineda allowed in 6.1 innings. Pineda did walk the bases loaded in the seventh, then gave way to Aaron Laffey, who yielded a game-tying RBI single to Jordan Schafer and a two-RBI knock to McCann.

But the Mariners had their chances early in this game, too, and Kennedy will have you know that he wasn’t real pleased with his performance at that juncture, either.

The Mariners, already leading 2-0 thanks to Ichiro’s first homer of the year and an RBI double by Jack Cust, had the bases loaded with one out in the second inning. But Brendan Ryan struck out looking, and Kennedy, who would do well to go ahead and forget tonight’s game, flew out to right field and stranded both runners.

His luck wasn’t much better in the fourth inning, when the Mariners put runners on second and third following a solo homer by Cust – who was making his first start since June 14 – only to watch as Kennedy struck out swinging to strand two more in scoring position.

“A lot of guys had good games, battled,” Kennedy said. “Gimmy played hurt the whole game back there and pitchers did their job. I just didn’t do mine today.”

Which brings us to the Mariners catching situation. The Mariners’ hope is that Olivo, who tried to catch the fourth inning but asked to be taken out after the cramps were too much for him to bear, won’t have to miss any more time. Gimenez was unavailable to speak afterward, as he was receiving treatment with Olivo in the trainer’s room. But the guess here is that if Gimenez was truly hurt so bad he couldn’t swing, he’s probably not going to be available for Wednesday’s game.

Wedge’s status update on Olivo: “I’m hoping it’s nothing too serious. We got him out of there because we didn’t want him to do something that was going to put him out for an extended period of time. Hopefully, it’s not something more than a day-to-day thing, but they’re checking him out right now.”

And if the Mariners want to make a roster move, they’ll have to consider that Tacoma catcher Josh Bard missed his third consecutive game on Tuesday with a toe injury. That would leave Jose Yepez as the most likely call-up option for the Mariners, should they choose to go that route.

We’ll find out on Wednesday. For now, the Mariners are left to lament another night of poor offensive execution.

“I left the bases loaded, and then with two men on,” Kennedy said. “It would have been nice to cash those in, but we didn’t do it.”